This study confirms that the Metamorphoses contains themes which are often tightly woven
together. The intratextual study indicates that, although the genre of the Metamorphoses is mainly
that of the epic, the episode of Echo and Narcissus investigated consistently shows strong
similarities to the love elegy , the genre that originally established Ovid’s poetic renown (Croally &
Hyde 2011: 299).
As anticipated, this analysis shows that love constitutes one of the important themes of this
narrative in Metamorphoses 3.339–510. Rejection and loss of love are also among the major
themes, as is death. The fire of love which begins at the seeing (videre) of the character’s object of
love ultimately, after a process of loss and suffering, culminates in death.
The intertextual analysis confirms the views of Barsby (1978: 35) and Luce (1982: 802) that Ovid
treats his characters with the utmost sympathy when they face the dangers and mysteries of love,
and especially touching the uncertainties of adolescence. One of the highlights of this analysis is the
revelation that Ovid is the only one of the Narcissus poets who sympathises with the boy and his
physical and emotional suffering, despite everything he has done to others.
The extratextual analysis confirms the findings of the intratextual analysis, which demonstrates that
the themes of this narrative, namely identity, love, loss and death, are closely related to each other,
and that this concept in fact constitutes the various parts or stages of an evil and destructive process.
One of the key findings in these two analyses is that copia stands for the character’s ‘self’ and thus
for his or her identity. With this in mind, the study shows that the proposed hypothesis is proven,
namely:
Regarding love, if an imbalance occurs between the character’s ‘self’ and the ‘other’, the rejection
and/or loss of love (or the character’s love object), causes loss of the character’s identity.
The study explains this phenomenon as follows: The imbalance between the character’s ‘self’ and
‘other’ leads the character to transfer his/her ‘self’ wholly to the ‘other’, resulting in the character’s
‘self’ being surrendered to the ‘other’ or love object (whether this is a real and existing person like
Echo, or an illusion created by a reflected image), and the ‘self’ no longer owns it. If this surrender
of the character’s ‘self’/identity is unrequited or is rejected, it causes an irreversible loss of the
character’s ‘self’ and he/she loses his/her identity.
This loss of the ‘self’ or identity of the character causes an intensely melancholic lifestyle which
deprives the character of all vitality. In this condition the character refuses to take any action to save him/herself, and accepts death as the only remaining refuge. Once ‘passive suicide’ has been
decided on, the character loses his/her body and human existence, i.e. dies.